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“Suddenly I heard two thumps and saw dust and rocks flying. I ran into the shed and threw myself on the ground. Ten seconds later the bombs exploded.

“The scene outside was terrifying. One person was split in two. Some people were crying out in pain. Six or seven were lying on the ground. Some had lost their legs and arms. One man lost his two arms. There were pieces of flesh and blood on the wall.”

That is what Syria’s air war looks like from the inside, according to a warehouse worker north of Aleppo, whose testimony was documented in a report released Thursday by Human Rights Watch.

“Entire neighbourhoods are destroyed and hundreds of thousands are suffering,” said Anna Niestat, a Human Rights Watch specialist in humanitarian crises, speaking from the Syrian-Turkish border. “There are horrible injuries, but it doesn’t end there. The effects on people’s lives are much more extensive.”

Scenes of death from the skies have become terrifyingly commonplace for those in parts of Syria under opposition control, says the report, compiled from interviews with more than 140 witnesses in Aleppo, Idlib and Latakia governorates between August and December 2012.

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And it says, many of the strikes on civilians appear “deliberate and indiscriminate,” and are targeted at areas where no fighters are in combat. Neighbourhoods are flattened and survivors forced to flee. The structure of normal life collapses.

“People live in fear,” said Neistat. “The pattern is very clear. They are attacked, they flee and the moment they try to come back to their neighbourhoods they’re attacked again. Hospitals are destroyed, bakeries aren’t functioning, food and clean water are hard to find, houses are in ruins.”

Since July 2012, the report said, Syrian government forces have carried out aerial attacks from fighter jets and helicopters against cities, towns and neighbourhoods under the control of opposition forces.

But, Neistat said: “It’s very striking that there were virtually no cases where they hit fighters’ positions. Civilians are the casualties. When there are attacks on bakeries we could consider it a mistake if it was only one or two. But that is not the case.”

The report documented eight air strikes on bakeries where people were lined up for bread. Others were hit by artillery attacks, it said. Two hospitals had been attacked a total of seven times.

Furthermore, strikes that have deliberately or indiscriminately killed civilians appear to be part of “systematic and widespread attacks against the civilian population.”

Children are especially vulnerable to aerial attacks because they are more easily crushed by falling debris or seriously wounded by shrapnel.

Among the weapons used in the attacks are cluster bombs, which are widely banned because they spread hundreds of deadly “bomblets” over a wide area, causing maximum civilian damage. Incendiary weapons also leave buildings in flame, beyond the control of the collapsing firefighting system.

Although the airstrikes do not appear to target fighters, the report said, the Free Syrian Army and its allies should take “all feasible measures” to minimize risk to civilians by avoiding attacks on government forces from populated areas.

Human Rights Watch did not call for no-fly zones, like those imposed on Libya when former leader Moammar Gadhafi attacked opposition towns.

But it urged governments and companies to “immediately stop selling or supplying weapons, ammunition and materiel to Syria, given compelling evidence that the Syrian government is committing crimes against humanity.”

The planes, helicopters and munitions used in the aerial attacks are “mostly Soviet,” Neistat said. “Likely they are from (old) contracts with the Soviet Union.”

Russia says it currently limits its supplies to Syria to “defensive weapons” and spare parts, but has blocked attempts to pass a United Nation arms embargo. Iran is also accused of shipping weapons to Syria.

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